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When the prospects of digitization seem endless, design studio Jess3 recently stepped in to lend some clarity to the subject with an amusing infographic video illustrating the meteoric rise of the Internet. With 1.73 billion users, 243 million websites, 200 billion spam emails, and at least one new social networking platform cropping up every year, the interpersonal interactivity is at times difficult to fully comprehend. Their three-minute video puts it all into perspective, animating pie charts, thumb tacks, speech bubbles and more to help get a handle on the staggering size of the web.

Now a nearly globally shared vocabulary, social networking sites actually began 15 years ago with Classmates.com. Jess3's informative timeline on the rise of social networking websites charts the exponential expansion in the early 2000s with Flickr, Friendster, Myspace, Facebook, Youtube and more, concluding with the recently unveiled Google Buzz.

Acknowledging how the Internet is at times a strange beast, Jess3 really captures the paradoxical nature of this century's most game-changing invention—isolating yet intimate, unimaginably wide yet easily traversed.

There has been a lot written about the business side of the real time web. Many internet companies have entered the space and established websites have implemented the real time web into their offerings. Also, millions of internet users have joined social networking sites such as Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn in an effort to connect with people and share pictures and experiences with friends. However, there are a ton of tools available to all internet users allowing anyone to take advantage of, and learn from the real time web. And, the great aspect of these tools is that they are free and anyone can use them regardless of whether or not you are a member of any social networking site.

The most basic way to navigate the real time web is through search. On the real time web, people talk about whatever is on their minds. By using a real time web search engine, you are able to get a window into people’s thoughts about any given topic in real time. Plus, since real time results are ranked with the most recent result coming first, a search today will reveal different information than a search tomorrow. So, real time search results can give you new information each day - even if you are searching for the same topic.

There are several real time search engines to choose from. A good place to start would be with Twitter’s engine. On the Twitter homepage, you can enter a search for any topic and instantly read the current chatter on that subject. Another search engine to check out is Sency (editors note: authors company). While Twitter displays both links and comments within each real time result, Sency separates this information so that you can easily sort through either what’s being said right now or today’s most popular links for any given keyword.

Another interesting aspect of the real time web is the ability to identify current trends. Since people are posting updates each minute, real time websites are able to highlight which topics are being mentioned the most right now. Many sites publish the top 10 or top 20 topics being mentioned this instant or over the past day. Often, these trends can clue you into breaking news before it becomes mainstream because often the internet community will be in the know about a story or event before major media outlets. You can see the current trends on the homepage of Twitter. Twitter shows you what is hot right now, today, and this week. For more detailed information about trends, you can visit What The Trend. (http://whatthetrend.com/) This website will list the current trends, and in a format similar to Wikipedia – it also allows any of its visitors to provide feedback as to why a particular topic is trending right now. So, this can be a great resource to learn about the reasons behind the hot topics on the web.

In addition to trends, certain stories become popular on the real time web very quickly. TweetMeme allows you to view the hottest stories right now that are being shared on Twitter. When you visit the homepage, you will see the most recent stories which are popular along with how many times each story has been shared. Many other websites and blogs, you’ll notice will display how many times an article you are reading has been shared on the real time web as well. The reason behind this is that it promotes the sharing of the article, and also, it lets users which stories on a given website or blog are attracting the most eyeballs. Also, in this vein, another interesting resource to check out is Daily RT. One of the most popular functions of Twitter is the retweet function. When someone retweets they are taking what someone else posted on Twitter and they then rebroadcast it to their Twitter page. So, the more a particular message gets retweeted, the more popular it is. Daily RT allows you to search and view the most popular retweeted messages on the web. This can be a very interesting way to stay on top of the most important topics being discussed.

As you can see, all of these tools allow you to learn from the real time web without signing up to participate in any of the services. Each of these tools are free to use, and due to the real time nature of each, you can learn something new each time you utilize them. As more and more users flock to social networks, and as these tools do an even better job of implementing and displaying the real time information – these tools will turn out to be even better resources for internet users. So, by familiarizing yourself with these resources and learning how to use them, you will become more informed and you will be able to take better advantage of the internet in the future.

About the Author: Evan Britton is the founder of real time search engine Sency.

The Enterprise Irregulars blog is sponsored by .   Work.  Online.  

Sony didn't make many waves at the CES when it revealed its Dash internet viewer, but today's news of extra features is starting to make the device look interesting.

The Dash is basically a digital picture frame that runs widgets - small programs that can pull data from the web for display on its screen. You could customize the Dash so it would show you the weather forecast, maybe a television schedule, and your friends' latest Twitter posts. Problem is, this is the sort of stuff you could just as easily do on a laptop if you already had one, and at $200 for the Dash, you'd be better of buying a low-end netbook and getting all the versatility one offers.

Today's news changes things a bit, as the Dash now will be able to stream video from select websites, including the ability to show Netflix streaming movies. Now the gadget seems like a steal as an internet-enabled television. Sure the screen is only seven inches, but that's just about right for a bedside table. The Dash will start shipping in April, if you're interested in checking one out.